Friday, March 27, 2015

This is a revised version of a post I wrote a few years ago. As Australian schools prepare for the Easter holidays I thought I'd remind you of some well known activities that can reduce screen time and boredom when your kids have more time on their hand.

Parents who
have children to care for might try some of the fifteen easy activities.
All are fun, simple and can be done at home. Of course, while it's a
post about holiday activities any of the ideas can also be used at
other times.

For
many parents holidays mean more hours to
fill each day with activities that will keep your children occupied,
stimulated and happy. I've written a number of posts in the past about
things to do in the holidays with kids (here) and simple travel games to fill the time on trips with your children (here). There is also an excellent post on Planning With Kids that offers '10 Activities to Do With Kids at Home'.

I
thought I'd offer my top 16 activities that can work inside and
outside, in pretty much any type of weather. My criteria for choosing
them are that the activities should:

Stimulate creativity

Encourage exploration and discovery

Involve using their hands as well as their minds

Encourage interaction between you and your children

Foster literacy development

Increase their knowledge

Keep them interested

Encourage your children to make a film

1. Use a simple animation app to get them started - This sounds a big deal but its not with the write app. I wrote a post about some wonderful apps for digital story telling a year or so ago (HERE). One of my favourites is 'Puppet Pals, for one thing, it's VERY easy to use. Your children will work it out in minutes. Puppet Pals
is available as a free app for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. It is
essentially a simple way to create an animated movie using 'cut-out'
themed characters and a variety of backdrops and scenes to create an
animated 'puppet' play.

There
is a free version that comes with Wild West backgrounds and actors.
However, you can also purchase different themes for $US0.99 or the
'Director's Cut' in which you can access all the themes for $US2.99.
These allow you to obtain a range of additional scenarios and characters
based on themes such as monsters, space, pirates, arthropod armada,
Christmas and so on. You can even make your backdrops and characters.

This
is a very simple to use app that provides very easy storyboarding. You
can record dialogue, move characters around, create some simple effects,
change backdrops and settings and characters. Below is an example that
my eight year old grandson produced with little instruction and next to
no preparation at his second attempt using the app. While ideally,
before creating the animation, the writer/producer prepares plot
summaries and story ideas, Jacob made this excellent animation as a
first take. He used the 'Arthropod Armada' theme from 'Director's Cut'.

Puppet
Pals is a wonderful resource for supporting story telling, writing,
language development, creativity, and problem solving, while at the same
time introducing them to film making and animation. I could see myself
using a smartboard to collaboratively develop a story with my class
before introducing individuals and groups to this smart little app.

Books with a difference

2. Pick some special books they haven't seen
- try to borrow or buy at least 2 books for each child that you think
they'll enjoy. Op shops, book exchanges and libraries are the place to
start. See my post on book exchanges, op shops and web exchange sites here. Take your children with you to the op shop or library to choose them.

3. Books as a creative stimulus
- While the shear joy of the book is usually enough, sometimes books
can stimulate many wonderful creative activities. For example:

After reading Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things are"
go outside and dramatise it. Let one child be Max and let others take
turns at being the wild things. Make a boat out of bits of wood, or
even have a go at making one out of a large cardboard box (or several).

After reading Jeannie Baker's book "Where the Forest Meets the Sea"
(a book about the Daintree Rainforest in which all the pictures are
collage) encourage them to make a collage out of natural materials (and
maybe some wool, straws etc to supplement) in response to Baker's
pictures. Or read a second book and have them use collage in response.

After reading Graeme Base's "The Waterhole" get them to paint the waterhole (they can draw the animals, cut them out and paste them around the waterhole).

4. Dramatisation
- Dramatisation is an excellent way to respond to a book. If you have a
dress-up box all the better. Let your children either re-tell the
story through dramatisation or improvise. Get involved to help set the
pattern for turn taking etc. I play a mean wolf, and an even better
Grandma!

Writing

5. Diaries and journals
- Introduce older children to diaries or holiday journals. Make this
fun, not a school activity. If they just want to make it a scrapbook by
pasting in tickets, leaves they collect, food wrappers etc, then let
them. But you can also show them how to create a travel diary.

6. A holiday blog
- Tech savvy mums and dads might encourage their children to write
online. Why not set up a family blog that can be read by friends and
relatives (even if only for two weeks). You could use this as part of a
trip away, or just use it at home. Older children could set up the blog
themselves and all family members could contribute. Let them have
access to a digital camera and a scanner and the sky is the limit. See
my recent post on 'Children as bloggers' (here).

7. Start a family joke or riddle book - give them some jokes as models ("Knock, knock", "Why did the centipede cross the road"....)

I've written a number of previous posts on play (here)
but planning for play is important. While you can say to your children
go outside and 'play', doing some simple planning at times will lead
to more stimulating play times.

10. Dress-up box-
If you don't have one take the kids to an Op shop to start one. You
might even pick up some gems like old helmets, hats, belts (you can cut
them down), handbags etc.

11. Water play
- This is hard in cold weather, but maybe you could make bath-time
special for littlies with extra bubbles, different stuff to take into it
. In warmer weather give them a bucket of water and some things to
scoop, sieve etc - obviously only UNDER SUPERVISION.

12. Play dough
- You can buy cheap coloured modelling clay but home-made playdough
works well. My wife 'Carmen's can't fail' recipe is 1 tablespoon of oil,
1 cup of plain flour, 0.5 cup of cooking salt, 2 tablespoons Cream of
Tartar, 1 cup of water, colouring. Mix together and put in a saucepan
on medium heat until it binds together, stirring all the time. Fold
together by hand. If you keep it in a sealed plastic bag it will last
for ages in or outside the fridge.

There
are endless things to do with play dough. Try to move beyond just
cutting out shapes (which kids still love). Encourage them to make a
house, a farmyard, a bed, and an aquarium. Use some plastic animals with
the play dough or small plastic people. If you don't mind tossing the
play dough out you can let them use sticks, plants etc to make simple
dioramas. Kids will create complex stories as they manipulate the play
dough.

The blanket cubby!

13. Build a cubby house-
No not with wood, just use a table, some chairs, wardrobes (hitch the
blankets into the top of the doors, some pegs and sheets and blankets.
By draping them over other objects you should be able to create a
special space (about 2x2 metres is enough for three small kids). Try to
get at least 1.5 metres of height. Have the kids 'help' and then get
them to collect some special things to have in the cubby. Use a toy box
for a table, some cushions to sit on. I always let my grandchildren
have my cheap transistor radio from my shed (lots of fun). Girls might
like a tea set; boys will collect animals and toys, both will like
books. If you're up to it, climb in as well and read some stories.
They'll like the edges tucked in to cut out light so you might need a
torch. I've seen a cubby of this kind amuse kids for half a day. Then
of course for the adventurous you can share some snack food as well.
You can even build a cubby inside! See my post on cubbies (here).

Above: Jacob in a 'house' that he made (with help) from a box we saved

Indoor and back yard fun

14. Treasure hunts
- Write the clues on paper using words and pictures depending on ages
and make the treasure worthwhile (chocolate, a coupon for an ice cream
in the kitchen etc). For something a little more challenging why not
try a map with grid references (see picture opposite).

15. Cooking - Kids love cooking with their mothers or fathers. Do simple stuff. Nicole (Planning With Kids)
has lots of great ideas for cooking with kids on her site. Don't
forget to make it a language activity as well by getting them to follow
the recipes.

16. Insect scavenger hunt-
Try an insect scavenger hunt (one of my grandchildren's favourite
activities). You'll be surprised just how many you can find. You'll to
be careful turning rocks over and digging around, but even in Australia
it's low risk if you supervise. Place a pile of bricks in a damp place
and then let the kids help you to uncover them a few days later - watch
the critters scurry. We always enjoy a good snail race afterwards!

A few basics hints

Have
a strategy for the holidays - map out a timetable (post it on the
wall) and try to plan a few significant events and think through the
general structure of each day.

If you have younger children still at home, being joined by school
kids on holidays, try to think about how you will cope with all their
interests and think about varying daily routines a little.

Pace yourself - don't use all your best ideas in the first few days
(you'll wear them and yourself out and you'll struggle to keep up the
variation later).

Expect bad weather - think about some ideas that will work in rainy
weather as well. It's called the "Law of Holidays" - expect lots of wet
weather and a day or two of sick kids.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

This is a revised version of a post that I did in 2013. I thought that I'd revisit it.

Children begin to write early - very early! In fact, they begin to make marks on their world as soon as they can dip fingers into food, water and dirt. Once they can hold a pencil or crayon they are ready to 'compose'! It is important that in the first two years of life that children are given the chance to experience writing. By this, I don't mean structured learning activities, I simply mean an encouragement to try to make marks that might just represent meaning. Very early on children will scribble or make marks and attribute meaning to it.

There are many simple ways to encourage children to write:

a) Provide them with varied writing implements and materials to write on.
b) Encourage them to try to write letters and words.
c) Let them see you writing words and letters.
d) Encourage them to write their name, numbers and letters.
e) Let them see you writing and reading words at the same time.

Rich experiences of early writing have an impact on
language and learning generally, and certainly reading. Offering rich early experiences for
writing are as important as reading to and with your children. As well,
children who have rich early reading experiences will often be more
precocious as writers. To illustrate the interrelatedness of all aspects
of language and meaning making, I want to suggest eight ways that early
writing reinforces reading.

1. Being read to and reading oneself offers us a rich experience of story - I've written in other posts about the importance of story to life and learning (e.g. here). Harold Rosen once suggested that 'Narratives...make up the fabric of our
lives...'. Jerome Bruner and others have gone further to suggest that story is 'a fundamental mode of thought through which we construct our world or worlds.' And of course, story is fuel for writing.

2. Reading offers models for writing
- Reading also introduces us to varied ways to share a story, and
how to start a story and end it. It helps us to learn how to develop a
character, the art of description, humour, rhyme and rhythm. Dr Seuss is a master at such lessons.3. Reading teaches us about 'readership' -When children begin to
have books read to them, and later begin to read for themselves, they
realize that these stories have been written for them, the
reader. Good writing requires a sense of audience, and stories read
teach this. When children begin receiving letters, cards, or simply
being shown print in their world, they begin to grasp that language
isn't just to be received, but can also be created and shared with
others as a writer. They also learn that if
you write for readers, and receive responses, that this is enjoyable and
strengthens
relationships.

An early letter from Elsie

4. Reading enriches language
- There is no doubt that reading feeds children's writing. It
introduces children to new words, novel use for old words, and the very
important need to 'play' with language if you are to be a successful
writer. Robert Ingpen's book 'The Idle Bear'
demonstrates this well. It is essentially a conversation between two
bears but it is rich in language and metaphor. He starts this way:

"What kind of bear are you?" asked Ted
"I'm an idle Bear."
"But don't you have a name like me?"
"Yes, but my name is Teddy. All bears like us are called Teddy."

Later in the story a very confused bear asks:

"Where do you come from, Ted?"
"From an idea," said Ted definitely.
"But ideas are not real, they are only made-up," said Teddy. "You have to come from somewhere real to have realitives."
"Not realitives, relatives!" said Ted trying to hide his confusion.

Elsie's TV instructions

5. Reading introduces us to varied written genres -
While children experience story from a very young age, reading also
introduces them to the fact that language can be represented in
different genres.
Through reading at home and within their immediate world, children
quickly discover that people write and read lists, notes, labels on
objects, poems, jokes, instructions, maps and so on. Parents read and
point out these varied text forms and eventually children try to use
them.

My granddaughter Elsie's 'TV Instructions' (left), written aged five years, is a priceless
set of instructions that she wrote for her Nanna just before she went to
bed, so that Nanna could watch her favourite programs while
babysitting.6. Reading helps us to understand the power of words - Stories
and other texts quickly teach children that words can have power. Signs
give clear instructions in powerful ways - 'STOP', 'BEWARE OF THE DOG',
'CHILDREN CROSSING', 'KEEP OUT'. But well-chosen words express emotions too -
"I love you", "It was dark and scary". Children also discover that
words can do other things. With help they will enjoy discovering
language forms like onomatopoeia, e.g. atishoo, croak, woof, miaow, sizzle, rustle etc.

7. Reading offers us knowledge - Children also discover that reading offers us knowledge that can feed writing. Without content there
won't be writing. Books can captivate children and offer new areas of
learning and interest. As they are read books, they also learn about
their world. For example, they might discover that trees don't just have
green leaves, but sometimes these leaves change colour, fall off and
create a habitat for many creatures. Trees drop seeds which animals eat,
offer shelter for animals, material to build homes and so on. But they
are also homes for elves and animals that talk, places where strange
lands appear regularly, and where a lost dragon might rest. Reading
feeds writing with knowledge as raw material for writing.

8. Reading helps us to imagine and think
- As children are introduced to varied literary genres and traditions,
imaginations are awakened to the realms of fantasy, time travel,
recreation of life in other times, the perils of travel through space.
But at a more realistic level, reading can help young writers to imagine
childhood in other places and times, 'within' the bodies of other
people and with varied life roles. Through reading, children are given
the examples and the fuel to imagine and write about themselves in the
shoes of others, sharing their life circumstances as well as their
challenges, fears and hopes.

Thursday, March 12, 2015

Children ask lots of
questions. Sometimes their questions don’t move beyond repetitive
“Why?” questions that can be annoying. But as well as helping them to learn, children's questions can also teach us a great deal about them and their learning.

Children’s
questions usually show us how keen they are to learn – We see that there are
gaps in their knowledge, new areas of interest,
& things that puzzle them.

Questions
offer us a window into children’s learning – We discover what they are interested
in, their learning styles, and how well they learn best.

Questions
are also one way that children try to take control of their own
learning - As they ask questions they try to set an agenda and focus for their learning.

Questions are a way for children to test their existing knowledge - They assess what they know and test their own hypotheses.

In short, questioning is a critical tool for
children’s learning, and needs to be encouraged.

Above: One of my grandchildren discovers a pistol shrimp. This stimulated lots of questions!

1. How can I ask better questions to stimulate learning?

Questioning
is a vital tool for parents
and teachers. As well as answering questions, we should also try to ask a variety of questions, but NOT just
to test learning. The best use of questions is when they are
used to stimulate curiosity, problem solving, imagination, a quest for
knowledge and as a result, learning. A good tool for asking better
questions is a simple taxonomy. There are many ways to classify
questions but Bloom's Taxonomy is still one of the
most useful
frameworks for helping us to get better at it. These include:

Questions that test knowledge or seek basic recall of knowledge – “Why might the pistol shrimp have one claw larger than the other?” “What did the first pig build his house from?”

Questions that seek some level of interpretation – “If it was a sick or damaged claw how could we test this"? "How come Max's food was still hot when he went back to bed? (Where the Wild Things Are)"? “Why was Pinocchio sad?”

Questions that require application of knowledge or problem solving – “Okay, we've found three pistol shrimps with one big claw, what might the claw be for?" Why didn’t the stepmother let Cinderella go to the ball?”

Questions that require analysis – “Where did we find the pistol shrimps? Why might they be living there"? “Why do you think the 3rd little pig got up before the time he told the wolf?” “Was Fern’s father mean to want to kill Wilbur?”

Questions that require synthesis of knowledge – "We've notice the clicking noise the pistol shrimp makes. What could this be for"? "So which animal sank the boat and how do you know (from 'Who Sank the Boat')?” “What do you think is going to happen when the 3rd Billy Goat crosses the bridge?”

Questions that require some type of evaluation (opinion, values, critique, judgement) – "Let's find some information on the pistol shrimp and test our answers to the last question. What is the claw all about and is their a link with where it lives?“ Was Max naughty"? "Should his mother have sent him to his room?”

As
I have already said above, it is important for children to make good
use of questions. To help them learn what good questions are you can
model questioning for them. There are a variety of ways that you can do
this.

Ask questions of children that encourage learning and thinking

Avoid over-using questions that just test learning, or that simply channel learning in directions that you want it to go.

Try to give honest answers to children’s questions.

Don’t be frightened to say “I don’t know”, but use this to demonstrate that not knowing the answer should lead to further learning “Let’s try to find out…”

In
Australia we have a very funny advertisement for an Internet company
that has a sequence of exchanges between a boy and his Dad. In one the
boy is doing some research for school on China. He asks his Dad, “Dad, why did they build the Great Wall of China?”

His Dad suggests, “That was during the reign of Emperor Nasi Goreng - to keep the rabbits out – too many rabbits in China”.

I'll say it again, we should never be afraid to say, “I’m not sure, but I’ll think about it and let you know” (view the video HERE).

3. Here are 4 strategies to help children ask better questionsI wrote a whole book about comprehension strategies some years ago ('Teaching Reading Comprehension: Meaning Makers at Work')
but here are just four question strategies that can be adapted for use with
children of varied ages. In these examples, I'm assuming a grade 5
(10-11 year-olds).a) Question frameworks

Make
a chart that has a simple framework for questing complete with
examples. The one above based on Bloom's Taxonomy is an example. An even
simpler example is one developed by Nila Banton Smith and has proven helpful for many teachers:

Literal - These ask for details or facts you can find in the text, e.g. 'What was the rat's name in Charlotte's Web?'Interpretive - These require the reader to supply meaning not directly stated, e.g. 'Why did Fern's father want to kill the runt pig?'Critical - These require the reader to evaluate something, e.g. 'Do you think Templeton was honest?'Creative
- These require readers to go beyond the text, to express new ideas,
solve a problem etc, e.g. 'What other words might Charlotte have used in
her web to save Wilbur?'

Use
the chart to discuss the varied type of questions we can ask about
stories, use the categories at times when asking questions of the class,
model the varied forms in group work, and use them for some set work. I
offer further information on the above questioning strategy in my book 'Balancing the Basics'.

b) Visual Comprehension

You
can use images, cartoons or a short video segment to stimulate and
model questioning. The example below shows how a simple template for
group work can be used to direct attention at images and generate good
questions and insights (see my post on 'Visual Comprehension' HERE). The grade 4 students were looking at a series of newspaper images.

c) Talk-to-the-author
I developed this strategy many years ago and wrote about it in 'Teaching Comprehension: Meaning Makers at Work'.
It is a very simple strategy designed to get young readers thinking
about the implied author and meaning that is beyond the literal. The
technique is applied like this:

Step 1
- prepare some passages of 300-1000 words in length (from magazines,
school readers, newspapers etc), or identify a passage in a class reader
or book.Step 2
- demonstrate the technique using a smartboard and explain that the
idea of this technique is to encourage us to ask questions that we might
ask if we had the author in the room.Step 3 - have your class help you with a second passage on the smartboard.
Step 4
- provide a passage and ask them to read, making note of at least 6
questions they might ask of the author and also at least 4 comments they
might offer.

d) Character Interview

I developed this strategy while working with gifted children, but it can
be used in any primary classroom. It requires readers to select a
character from a book and interview them. You can do this in several
ways. The simplest, and perhaps the best way to start this strategy, is
to ask children in pairs to come up with ten questions that they would
ask of a character in a story if they had the chance. They can then act
this out with one being the interviewer and the other the character.
An alternative to the above is to have one student prepare a series of
questions to which another student, filling the role of the character,
has to answer. Once again, it is helpful to give some guidance about the
need to ask varied questions that include interpretive, critical and
creative questions, not just literal ones.

Other posts on comprehension

You might like to have a look at the following posts on comprehension:

Everyone knows that a
tiny acorn grows into a mighty oak and a caterpillar becomes a
butterfly. But in this clever, visually simple and yet stunning hardcover book, French artists Ramstein and Arégui do much more than offer a simple book of word concepts. They offer visual springboards to problem solving and imagination. The authors play with numerous hidden dimensions of one's view of the world. A view of a great mountain across fields can leave the fields as simple foreground, but what if the view of the mountain is from within the foliage that covers the ground? A rocket waiting on the launch pad is positioned next to a moonscape and offers a visual point of view across the moon's surface. A landscape that displays human footprints against a backdrop of a familiar distant planet.

Turn a page and cooking ingredients sit next to a well decorated cake, and as we turn the page we encounter a mountain field complete with cow adjacent to a bottle of milk. The next double spread returns to the mountain field, but this time in the foreground we have an easel with a painting of the scene and the cow.

So the 'reader' is invited to contemplate how a cow can result in both a bottle of milk and a painting, an ape in a jungle may become an urban King Kong, a many-tiered cake is both created and
eaten, a quill pen sits beside a typewriter, a pack of cards can transform into a pyramid and so on. These simple, graphic illustrations, gently tinted with pastel colours, will appeal to readers of all ages and will make them think and contemplate their world. This is a book that doesn't just explore the concepts of 'before' and 'after' it invites the 'reader' to reflect on time, perspective and reality. Readers aged 3 to 8 will be fascinated by this book.

Dr Norman is Head of Sciences at Museum Victoria where he leads the
large and active natural sciences research team. He
studies octopuses, squid, cuttlefishes and nautiluses (the
cephalopods). He is also a trained teacher, an educational display
designer and an experienced underwater cinematographer. His research and
projects with documentary makers including BBC, National Geographic and
Discovery Channel has covered giant squid, poisonous blue-ringed
octopuses, huge aggregations of southern giant cuttlefish and diving
surveys of remote Indo-Pacific coral reefs.He has published a series of simple factual picture books framed by the word 'funny'. His first was 'Funny Bums' published in 2013. 'Funny Faces' is the second in the series. From oversized noses to bulging eyes, elaborate beaks to gigantic ears -
the faces of some animals may look funny to us, but their peculiar
features are exactly what those animals need to survive. Find out "Why
the funny face?"3. 'Funny Homes' by Mark Norman (Black Dog Books)

As with the first two books in this series Dr Norman considers the complexity and beauty of the natural world, while at the same time considering its 'strangeness'. With his customary scientifically accurate and informative text, and stunning photographs, he invites us to explore aspects of the world around us. You see, some creatures live in funny places - prickly cactuses, dark caves, high
treetops. These are strange places where humans would not survive for five minutes. Just why do these animals have such strange homes?

Bernadette Kelly loves writing non-fiction and in this book she writes about writers. But not ordinary writers, she writes about some of our pioneers of poetry, plays and novels. They are all great names that many of us know by reputation and the odd work, but just how much do we know about these greats who have made their mark on our literary culture. These are the writers of the 19th century who influenced our grandparents and great grandparents.

With 200-400 word descriptions, beautiful illustrations and historic photographs and paintings, she makes us want to explore the great works of Adam Lindsay Gordon, Banjo Paterson, Miles Franklin, Henry Lawson, CJ Dennis, Mary Gilmore, May Gibbs and more. This book will be enjoyed by children aged 10 to 13 years. Suited ideally for use in classrooms, it will be a valuable resource and a good individual read for children who love literature.

The work has no doubt been a labour of love for Bernadette Kelly. In her words:

"Researching this book was a joy, and I learnt a lot in the process. The
writers, poets and journalists of colonial and post-federation days in
this country were a tough lot and they shared my love of words and
stories. So it’s out there now. May it find its way into the hands of
Australian history lovers and learners."

Rich literacy experiences from the start!

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About Me

I am a Professor of Education at The University of Sydney, Australia. I have spent a large part of my adult life as a teacher, academic, researcher and senior university administrator. My interests are varied, including how children learn language and literacy, the nature and construction of meaning, curriculum, pedagogy, and adult learning.